This course starts off by saying we’re going to take a look at everything that goes into building a WordPress plugin. While it’s clearly just an introduction, the author, Tom McFarlin, breaks down what will be covered: setting up a web server, a database server and PHP installing WordPress, and looking at the sample plugins that come bundled with it examining the event-driven design pattern and how it factors into creating a WordPress plugin looking at the differences between WordPress actions and WordPress filters building our own plugin using various WordPress APIs If you’re just starting from scratch some of that will …

I feel a major sense of déjà vu because I have gone down this road before. In the past I have done the whole MAMP setup so I could have my local server for development purposes. I no longer had that on my laptop so I was starting fresh. As I started the Tuts+ tutorial by Tom McFarlin, he recommended MAMP (and WAMP and XAMPP). I decided to go a different route and try Desktop Server. I had heard good things about it, plus I’d previously met Marc Benzakein through the WP After Dark hangout (now defunct) and then saw …

So when I was looking at how to learn plugin development, I said one way would be to apprentice with an expert. As I mentioned, these experts are pretty busy but many of them have written courses or tutorials to share their experience. Part of the challenge though is identifying the best people to learn from. I came across a article by Chris Lema (definitely, a WordPress expert) about learning plugin development the “right way.” Very timely for me to have found this. His position was that you need to make sure you learn from the right people. His criteria …

So, as my plugin development journey begins, my next question is where to learn how to develop WordPress plugins. Obviously, there are tutorials all over, but the goal is to learn best practices as I go. I like systems and structure, so I don’t want to have to piece everything together from random bits. A quick Google search shows that there are, as expected, lots of tutorials and blog posts, many of which are entitled “Build your first WordPress plugin in 5 minutes.” They show you just how easy it is to create the necessary plugin structure so that WordPress recognizes …

Ok, so I want to learn WordPress plugin development. I’ve put that into the universe and decided to get started. Now what? The first task for this project is to set a goal. It’s not enough to say I want to learn. How deeply do I wish to learn and by when? I’m not necessarily, at this stage, looking to become an expert. My goal is to be able to develop the plugin ideas that I have had over the years, to a standard where they can be submitted to the repository so others will use and like them, and using …